I. Field of the Disclosure
The technology of the disclosure relates generally to mobile computing devices and subscriber access cards that enable the mobile computing devices to interoperate with subscriber networks.
II. Background
Mobile computing devices have become increasingly common in everyday life. The ability to use such devices as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and other small, portable, wireless communication devices to remain in contact with friends, family, colleagues, co-workers, and the like is perceived to have great value to the users of such devices. In most situations, such users contact a service provider such as AT&T®, VERIZON®, SPRINT®, or the like, and agree to a service contract that provides the user access to a subsidized mobile terminal and access to a wireless network maintained by the service provider through the mobile terminal. Other service providers offer pay-as-you-go type contracts or the like.
To control access to the wireless network maintained by the service provider, the service provider may require that the mobile terminal have credentials with which to authenticate the mobile terminal to the wireless network. Such credentials may be stored in a secure format on a subscriber interface module (SIM) card or a universal integrated circuit card (UICC) that is received within the housing of the mobile terminal and accessed by a control system of the mobile terminal as needed to pass the credentials to the wireless network. The UICC is generally a single card on which all SIM applications can be placed, including SIM (the original Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) Subscriber Identity Module), USIM (user SIM), CSIM (CDMA SIM), and RUIM (Removable User Identity Module). Each of these types of SIM is viewed as an application, whereby one or many of them can coexist on a physical UICC. Other systems, such as systems that rely on code division multiple access (CDMA) protocols may use a virtual network access card to store such credentials.
While many users may be content to have a single service provider, there may be instances in which users may require access to multiple service providers. In such an event, the user may need to have multiple SIM cards or UICCs so that the mobile terminal may be authenticated with each service provider. Accordingly, there is a need to provide a mobile terminal that may efficiently interact with a plurality of SIM cards and/or UICCs.